The White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education (WHIAIANE) has announced it is having listening sessions on Native students’ educational environments throughout Indian Country in November. The listening sessions will give tribal governments, tribal citizens, educators, parents, community members and students the opportunity to speak with White House officials and Department of Education staff. This is an important aspect of consultation with tribal communities and Indian Country. These forums are also necessary to ensure Native students are educated in culturally-appropriate environments preparing them with the vocational and academic skills required for a healthy life upon high school graduation.

These cities and dates are:

Troy, New York – November 5

Seattle, Washington – November 7

Los Angeles, California – November 13

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma –November 18

East Lansing, Michigan – November 19

Tulsa, Oklahoma – November 21

The tour already completed two stops, one in Franklin, Wisconsin on October 10 and the other on October 26 in Lacrosse, Wisconsin.

The listening sessions focus on school environment issues — bullying, student discipline and offensive imagery and symbolism. The White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education is gathering feedback during the tour and will consider how it can inform future action to ensure Native American students receive a high quality education.

“We hope these sessions will serve as a meaningful resource to the Native community as my office and the Administration work to ensure that American Indian and Alaska Native students have equitable educational opportunities in healthy learning environments,” said William Mendoza, executive director of the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education. “Indian students have unique education challenges as they strive to preserve their native cultures and languages, while ensuring that they are college and career ready.”

In his June 13, 2014 visit to Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota, President Obama affirmed the Administration’s commitment to strengthen Native American communities through education and economic development. His initiative, “My Brother’s Keeper,” ensures that schools can provide the social, emotional, and behavioral supports for all youth—including boys and young men of color—that will enable all students to graduate from high school ready for college and careers.

The WHIAIANE and the Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) are committed to supporting school districts, states, tribal governments and other organizations as they seek to better serve Native American students and ensure that all students have equal opportunities and resources in order to learn and succeed in school, careers and in life.

California has 109 federally recognized tribal governments and millions of tribal citizens living within the state, according to the Judicial Council of California. The Bureau of Indian Affairs lists more than 566 tribal governments nationwide in the 2014 Tribal Entities List and with changes in the federal acknowledgement process – this number could grow considerably in coming years.

Each of these Nations is a sovereign and operates as a foreign nation in many respects. If a party is seeking to enforce a judgment in a tribal court, they previously had to do so under the Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act. The act includes within the definition of “foreign-country judgment” a judgment by any Indian tribe recognized by the government of the United States.

There has been a significant overhaul to this bill in the Tribal Court Civil Money Judgment Act. The bill was signed into law on August 22, 2014 by California Governor Jerry Brown. It was then entered by Secretary of State as Chapter 243, Statutes of 2014.

This bill, until January 1, 2018, exempts tribal judgments from the Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act, and would instead enact the Tribal Court Civil Money Judgment Act. The new act provides for the enforceability of tribal court money judgments in California.

The act prescribes a procedure for applying for recognition and entry of a judgment based on a tribal court money judgment, the procedure and grounds for objecting to the entry of judgment and the bases upon which the court may refuse to enter the judgment or grant a stay of enforcement.

One of the best provisions acknowledging tribal sovereignty is that “[n]othing in this title shall be deemed or construed to expand or limit the jurisdiction of either the state or any Indian tribe.”

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